FROM THE COLLECTION IN PÓVOA - A Cosmopolitan Realism: An exhibition around the KWY Group

from 29 NOV 2017 to 11 MAR 2018

Based on the cosmopolitan and experimental spirit of the KWY magazine, published from 1958 to 1964, this exhibition features a selection of works and artists’ publications from the Serralves Collection from Portuguese and international artists who were part of KWY group or collaborated in the KWY magazine, such as António Areal, Raymond Hains and Jorge Martins, as well as other publishing projects active at the time, namely the magazine Daily Bul, Sens Plastique and Dé-collage. The exhibition reveals a simultaneously enthusiastic and critical interest for the new configurations of reality, everyday objects and events, consumer society and the omnipresence of images in public space marking art’s claim to be at the core of the sociocultural events of its time.

Formed in Paris around the magazine under the same name, the KWY group included Portuguese artists René Bertholo, Lourdes Castro, António Costa Pinheiro, Gonçalo Duarte, José Escada and João Vieira, together with Bulgarian artist Christo and German artist Jan Voss. The KWY group were major contributors to opening up Portuguese art to an international context of the most stimulating periods in twentieth century European culture.

Based on an exhibition originally curated by Catarina Rosendo for the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015, ‘A Cosmopolitan Realism’ in Fórum da Maia is part of a programme of exhibitions and sited presentations of works from the Serralves Collection that furthers the Museum’s aim of making the Collection visible and accessible to a broader public around the country.